Electrical Impulse

At a Los Angeles concert this week, Cellist Stephen De'ak pulled his bow lightly across a queer contraption shaped somewhat like a pneumatic drill. With no effort he produced tones large enough to fill the hall.

The gadget, called an electro-cello, was the latest of scientists' attempts to improve on the aged wood and fine Italian hand of the old violin makers. It was fashioned by Caltech's seismologist Dr. Hugo Benioff, who gave up violin playing as a boy because he couldn't stand the noise he made. Eighteen years ago, when he was designing seismographs to measure earthquakes, he decided that there wasn't much difference between a seismograph and a fiddle "except one deals with slow movements and the other with rapid movements." For his scientific cello he mounted a conventional fingerboard and electrified bridge on a heavy wooden frame and stood the whole thing on a metal peg leg. Instead of tones, Dr. Benioff's cello produces electrical impulses which are transmitted to loudspeakers. It has a wider range than a standard cello, but not the deep brown tone.

Cellists who are used to the old jokes about struggling into subways with their bulky instruments will find the electro-cello no better. It weighs 50 lbs. and requires enough amplifying equipment to load a small truck.

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